Ben Glasstone
Composer / Artistic Director
Ben is a composer and theatre-maker. He writes musicals and funny songs for children and grown-ups, and spends a lot of his time trying to find rhymes for words like “chipolata” or “plate tectonics”. His musicals include The Mouse Queen (book co-written with Tim Kane) – which began at Little Angel Theatre and went on to Hampstead, Unicorn and The New Victory, off-Broadway – and more recently he has co-written two musicals, The Rhythmics and Cells, with Poppy Burton-Morgan for Metta Theatre. He has a long association with the Little Angel, where he wrote the music and lyrics for over a dozen shows, including Fantastic Mr Fox, The Giraffe, The Pelly and Me, Alice in Wonderland and The Night Before Christmas, which he also directed. He has written music and lyrics for many other shows, including The Tempest (The Royal Shakespeare Company/Little Angel), Moominsummer Madness (Royal and Derngate/Polka) and an adaptation of Quentin Blake’s picture books, All Join In (Polka Theatre). Ben has also led composing education projects with children and young people for the BBC, The Royal Opera House, Roundhouse, Unicorn, Philharmonia Orchestra and many others and his songs for children are published by Faber and A and C Black. Ben won the Stiles and Drewe Mentorship Prize in 2017 for his musical Reanimator, as well as the Stiles and Drewe Best Song (runner-up) with Poppy Burton-Morgan in 2019.
Steve Tiplady
Associate Director / Performer
Steve is one of the UK’s foremost puppetry directors and has directed puppetry for productions for many leading theatre companies, including The Royal Shakespeare Company, The Royal Opera House and The Globe Theatre. He was Artistic Director of The Little Angel Theatre in 2004-5 during which time successful productions he directed included The Mouse Queen, Jabberwocky and Fantastic Mr Fox. With his partner Sally Brown he runs a company called Indefinite Articles, creating innovative theatre for the under-fives alongside work for adults. Their 2002 production Dust won a Time Out Live off-West End Award. He specializes in work with shadows and has led on the shadow work in Thunder and Coal as well as co-directing two weeks of the show’s development.
George Warren
Producer
Steve is one of the UK’s foremost puppetry directors and has directed puppetry for productions for many leading theatre companies, including The Royal Shakespeare Company, The Royal Opera House and The Globe Theatre. He was Artistic Director of The Little Angel Theatre in 2004-5 during which time successful productions he directed included The Mouse Queen, Jabberwocky and Fantastic Mr Fox. With his partner Sally Brown he runs a company called Indefinite Articles, creating innovative theatre for the under-fives alongside work for adults. Their 2002 production Dust won a Time Out Live off-West End Award. He specializes in work with shadows and has led on the shadow work in Thunder and Coal as well as co-directing two weeks of the show’s development.
Karina Garnett
Performer
Karina trained at Middlesex University with John Wright. Credits include: ‘Hastings Spring’ (Glyndebourne Opera); ‘Arabian Nights and Days…’ (Shifting Sands); ‘Hanging Around’, Top Storey’, ‘Fool House’, ‘Island’, ‘The Adventures of The Stoneheads’ (Trestle); ‘Inamorata’, ‘Yarn’, ‘Feast Your Eyes’, ‘Shore’, ‘Exquisite Moments and Imperfect Endings’, ‘The Blue Moon Ball’, ‘And The Rain Falls Down’, ‘The Show’s The Thing’ (Fevered Sleep); ‘Tempting Fate’ (Trading Faces); ‘Romeo and Juliet’, ‘Pinocchio’ (Kazzum); ‘Unfolding Andersen’ ‘Lighten Up’ (theatre-rites); ‘The Gruffalo’, ‘The Gruffalo’s Child’, ‘Something Else’, ‘Room on The Broom’ (Tall Stories), ‘Beyond The Track’ (RSC) and ‘Let Us Clay’ (Indefinite Articles). She is currently touring as Sybil Fawlty in ‘The Faulty Towers Dining Experience’ (Interactive Theatre International)
Gilbert Taylor
Performer
Performer/co-deviser on BOOKSTORY (pilot version) and The KING of NOTHING (R and D).
Gilbert Taylor trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama on the MA Advanced Theatre Practice course. For nine years he has worked with Unpacked Theatre Company and has worked extensively in devised and puppetry shows with many companies including Polka Theatre, Little Angel Theatre, Theatre Hullabaloo, Norwich Puppet Theatre, Hiccup, Nonesuch, Dotted Line & dante or die. Gilbert also makes his own work with Bespoke Taylors and performed in their debut show ‘White Canvas’ at the Brighton Fringe in 2013. Gilbert plays the ukulele, trombone and other brass instruments and works with a variety of puppets including rod and table top puppets, shadow puppetry and object animation. www.gilberttaylor.com
Gemma Khawaja
Performer
Gemma Khawaja is an accomplished performer and workshop leader specialising in children’s theatre and puppetry.
Upon completing an Honours degree in Drama 2001, Gemma furthered her skills and training in puppetry by learning traditional puppet
making and performance techniques at Norwich Puppet Theatre from 2001-2004.
Gemma has over 15 years of professional experience performing in puppet shows produced by leading companies such as
Norwich Puppet Theatre, Horse & Bamboo Theatre and Little Angel Theatre.
Gemma is also a folk singer and guitarist and has worked nationally as a touring musician in addition to her work as a puppeteer and performer.
Artists from Previous Shows
Andrea Sadler
Performer
Andrea is an actor, singer, puppeteer, writer and director.Since training at The Central School of Speech and Drama she has enjoyed a wide variety of roles in theatre, film and TV. Favourites include A Christmas Carol for Antic Disposition; Fairy Bow-Belle in Dick Whittington opposite Blue Peter legend Peter Duncan; being directed by Trevor Griffiths in his own short play, Apricots; Round the Horne: Revisited (national tour); the Wife of Bath in The Canterbury Tales (Nottingham Theatre Royal), and playing an outraged French teacher in The Basil Brush Show for CBBC.For Little Angel Theatre she co-created and performed in Dogs Don’t Do Ballet and has appeared in Cindermouse, Fantastic Mr Fox, The Fabulous Flutterbys, Goldilocks, The Wild Night of the Witches and The Paper Dolls. Andrea’s theatre company Baby Panda recently received Arts Council funding to create a one-person show for a very young audience based on the song Five Little Monkeys. It premiered at this year’s Wilderness Festival, and will tour in Spring 2017. She is very excited to be appearing in Monstro’s Bookstory this Autumn and will end the year in the Kneehigh production A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings.
Philip Bosworth (Boz)
Performer / Designer
Performer, designer, co-deviser on The Adventures of Thunder and Coal and BOOKSTORY (pilot version).
High Street Odysey (Inspector Sands), Monkey Bars, (Chris Goode/Unicorn), Performer/Devisor, a verbatim theatre piece using words of children performed by adults in adult situations (Traverse Theatre & UK Tour)
The Adventures Of Thunder and Coal. Nonesuch Theatre/Little Angel Theatre (Performer & Designer)
Dickens’ London. Designed, made and operated puppets with Gavin Glover for a series of short films about life of Charles Dickens to accompany plays on BBC Radio 4. a BBC/Dan Films production. Directed by Chris Newby.
Flogging A Dead Horse, (Faulty Optic/Potato Room Productions), co-devised and performed with Gavin Glover and Charles Webber. London Mime Festival and European Tour.
‘Henry’ in Henry & Elizabeth, a homeshow by Chris Goode, (Signal To Noise/Royal & Derngate Northampton), UK Tour.
‘Henry’s Dad’ and ‘Miss BattleAxe’ in ‘Horrid Henry: Live and Horrid!‘, Sheffield Lyceum/Watershed, West End and UK Tour. Adapted by John Godber from books by Francesca Simon. Directed by Hannah Chissick.
Boz also appeared as the Dad to a desperately waiting boy in a Xmas ad for a well known high street department store. You wouldn’t have noticed him. It was all about the kid. On the day it went live it was more popular on Twitter than World War One.
Emma Bernard
Consultant Director
Consultant direction on Thunder and Coal.
Emma is currently developing a new vocal theatre piece ‘Jilted’ with Melanie Pappenheim and Rebecca Askew, based on an imagined meeting between Catherine Dickens and Miss Havisham. Emma is Associate Artistic Director of Streetwise Opera – a company that uses music to help people who have experienced homelessness move forward with their lives.
Recent direction: Orlando Gough’s Swarm for Barbican/ Home Live Art Extraordinary Voices, Sound and Space for LSO St Lukes,devised and performed by violinist Alexander Balanescu, accordionist Evelina Petrova, and aerialist Gisele Edwards. Fables – A Film Opera for Streetwise Opera at Spitalfields Festival, working with 140 performers who have experienced homelessness (“ superbly directed”, The Times****). Other Streetwise Opera projects: My Secret Heart at the Royal Festival Hall in 2008 and Critical Mass with composer Orlando Gough and The Shout at Almeida Opera 2007 (“a tremendous achievement”,The Independent*****). For Cardboard Citizens Led Easy ( by David Watson), Keep It Under Your Hat, and Keep Calm and Carry On – a site specific project with young refugees at The Cabinet War Rooms.
Other work includes: Flam – devised with composer Orlando Gough and performers Melanie Pappenheim and Rebecca Askew (Tête à Tête Opera Festival and currently touring), Sun and Heir (Royal Opera House Education), Fingerprint by Orlando Gough with The Shout (ROH2 – Linbury Studio) and Tongue-Tied with Askew and Avis (ROH2 ‘Firsts’ -Linbury Studio).
Ruth Calkin
Performance
(gail, voice, clarinet)
Ruth is an Actor, Musician and Puppeteer. Credits include: A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings (Little Angel/Kneehigh); The Tempest (Little Angel/RSC); In the Night Garden Live (Minor Ent/BBC Worldwide/Ragdoll, Tour); Charlie and Lola’s Best Bestest Play (A Polka Production presented by Watershed, Tour and Pleasance Islington); Horrid Henry – Live and Horrid! (Watershed Theatre, Tour/West End); Danny – the Champion of the World (Birmingham Stage Company, Tour); The Mouse Queen (Little Angel/Monstro, resident at The Unicorn then Hampstead Theatre); Sleeping Beauty – the Rock ‘n’ Roll Panto (The New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich); Hansel and Gretel by Carl Miller (Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds and Tour) and just under six years as a member of the Oily Cart company. Ruth will shortly begin her first job as Director of Puppetry for the 2012 tour of In the Night Garden Live.
Jake Rodrigues
Performance
(guitar, ukulele, accordion, voice, chorus)
Jake Rodrigues is a musician, performer and composer who works in theatre, music venues, television and radio. His past adventures include being a banjo player for Disney an accordion player for Midge Ure a Ukulele player for George Harrison and lead guitarist in hell with the critics award winning production of Faust (Punchdrunk/National Theatre). To complement his performing skills Jake is in demand as a workshop leader and teacher. He has an MA in Music & Culture and is respected for his knowledge and practical grasp of popular British art forms in street arts and music, both past and present. This has led to recent work with The Little Angel Puppet Theatre, Polka Theatre, Diverse City & London City Lit. In 2011 he continued his relationship with the Manchester International Festival with a new commission involving hundreds of children and adults with Ukuleles.
Hannah Marshall
Performance
(cello, voice, live sound design, chorus)
Hannah Marshall studied music at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama (first study ‘cello) and John Stevens’ Community Music. She has been making music & sound for theatre and dance productions, and performing in various bands and theatre companies since 1996, working as a performer, sound designer/composer and puppeteer with a broad spectrum of artists and companies including: People Show, Improbable Theatre, The Little Angel Theatre, Tom Morris and Battersea Arts centre, The Ding Foundation, The Young Vic, Emma Bernard, A2, Angika Dance Theatre, The Royal Opera House, Rejects Revenge, The Clod Ensemble, The National Theatre Studio, The London College of Fashion, Arlette George, Wild Theatre, Angika dance, Cartoon de Salvo, Petra’s Pulse, Akademi, Polar Bear, Mervin Millar & Indefinate Articles. As a musician she is involved in improvisation, regularly performing in London, the UK, and Europe, and brings this to much of her work within theatre and dance, groups & individuals she plays with include: The London Improvisers Orchestra, Luc Ex & Veryan Weston, Barrel, Mopomoso, Alexander Hawkins Ensemble & Trio of Uncertainty, Ingrid Laubrock and also with Fred Frith and John Butcher. She is co-aritstic director of The Ding Foundation making visual theatre since 2001. www.hannahmarshall.net
Luis Alvarez
Technical Stage Manager
2010 marks the beginning of my British life. Here is when I started working as Technical Manager for the LOST Theatre in London and had the chance to design both lighting and sound for a large amount of shows including Jerusalem (by Jez Butterworth), Hospital Food (by Eugene O’Hare), Tomorrow I’ll Be Happy (by Jonathan Harvey), Gargantua (by Carl Grose) or Market Boy (by David Elridge). I also operated comedy (including shows from Alan Davies, Richard Herring, Russell Kane, Jack Dee, Russell Howard…), cabaret (Mr. B the Gentleman Rhymer, EastEnd Cabaret, Marcel Lucont…) and several jazz & flamenco gigs.
In 2013 I started also working as a designer for other theatre companies focusing in other styles including puppetry, physical theatre and greek tragedies. My designs have been seen in venues such as the National Theatre Shed, the Soho Theatre, the Trycicle Theatre or the Little Angel Theatre.
In mid 2015 I took the decision of leaving LOST and focus entirely in my career as freelance lighting designer and sound engineer.
Jennie Pedley
Art Direction / Puppet Design
Jennie Pedley is a London based visual artist who uses silhouettes and shadows to create films, exhibitions, and performances. Jennie collaborates with professional performers and with the public. Jennie is currently artist in residence at Great Ormond St Hospital. Jennie has run shadow workshops for The Natural History Museum, The Wellcome Trust, Royal Brompton Hospital, The National Trust and for Cultural Olympiad projects at nature reserves. This summer she will be working on canal boats on the Cultural Olympiad project ‘Cargoes’ and co-creating animations for Paintings in Hospitals.
Opening 1st June until August 2012 at GV Gallery, London, you can see Jennie’s silhouette film commission ‘a is for of ageing’.
Jennie’s first product, a Mini Shadow Theatre, is available at Pollocks, Covent Garden and The National Portrait Gallery shop.
www.minishadowtheatre.com / www.jenniepedley.co.uk
Jennie is also an experienced children’s physiotherapist.
Want to book a show or workshop?